The Camp Fire Girls at Camp Keewaydin eBook

There was apparently an attic loft above the dining-room,
for next to the chimney a square opening showed in
the raftered ceiling, with a ladder leading up through
it, fastened against the wall below. Up this
ladder a dozen or more of the younger girls scrambled
as soon as they entered the room; laughing, shrieking,
tumbling over each other in their haste; and after
a moment of thumping and bouncing about, down they
all came dancing, clad in middies and bloomers, and
raced, whooping like Indians, down the path which
led to the tents.

“Are we supposed to get into our bloomers right
away?” Oh-Pshaw whispered to Agony. “Ours
are in the trunk, and it hasn’t been brought
up yet.”

“I don’t believe we are,” Agony
returned, watching Mary Sylvester, who stood talking
to Pom-pom in the doorway of the Camp Director’s
office. “None of the older girls are doing
it; just the youngsters.”

Just then Mrs. Grayson, the Camp Director’s
wife, came out of the office and announced that dinner
would be served immediately, after which the tent
assignments would be made. The Winnebagos found
themselves seated in a row down the side of one of
the long tables, being served by a jolly-looking,
muscular-armed councilor, who turned out to be the
Camp Director’s daughter, and who had her section
of the table feeling at home in no time.

“Seven of you from one city!” she remarked
to the Winnebagos, when she had called the roll of
“native heaths,” as she put it. “That’s
one of the largest delegations we have here.
You all look like star campers, too,” she added,
sizing them up shrewdly. “Seven stars!”
she repeated, evidently pleased with her simile.
“We’ll have to call you the Pleiades.
We already have the Nine Muses from New York, the Twelve
Apostles from Boston, the Heavenly Twins from Chicago
and the Three Graces from Minneapolis, beside the
Lone Wolf from Labrador, the Kangaroo from Australia,
and the Elephant’s Child from India.”

“Oh, how delicious!” cried Sahwah delightedly.
“Do you really mean that there are girls here
from Australia and India?” Sahwah set down her
water glass and gazed incredulously at Miss Judith.
Miss Judith nodded over the pudding she was dishing
up.

“The Kangaroo and the Lone Wolf are councilors,”
she replied, “but the Elephant’s Child
is a girl, the daughter of a missionary to India.
She goes to boarding school here in America in the
winter time, and always spends her summers at our
camp. That is she, sitting at the end of the
other table, next to mother.”

The Winnebagos glanced with quick interest to see
what the girl from India might be like, and somewhat
to their surprise saw that she was no different from
the others. They recognized her as one of the
younger girls who had been hanging over Pom-pom on
the boat.

“Oh—­she!” breathed Agony.

“What is her name?” asked Hinpoha, feeling
immensely drawn to the girl, not because she came
from India, but because she was even stouter than
herself.